Texas Stars suffer tough loss with depleted lineup in Charlotte

With Dallas calling up Denis Gurianov and Mark McNeil, the Texas Stars iced as depleted a roster as they’ve had all season.

The results showed in Texas’ savage 9-3 loss to the Charlotte Checkers on Saturday.

The lack of forward depth showed early, and remained an unrelenting gap in the contest from minute one onward.

Stop me if you’ve heard this before. Early in the first, Texas took a penalty and the resulting opponent’s power play capitalized. It was Charlotte’s Philip Samuelsson.

Not soon after Dennis Robertson blasted a shot from the point to give the Checkers a 2-0 lead.

Charlotte didn’t stop. Make no mistake. This might have been the worst period of hockey in Texas Stars history. Shots were 16-1 in favor of Charlotte through 20 minutes for what felt like a period length power play.

Aleksi Saarela and Patrick Dwyer took advantage of the sustained, lopsided pressure, tallying even strength goals of their own to stick Texas in a 4-0 foxhole.

A questionable tripping call against Travis Morin triggered the start of the second period. A Charlotte breakaway on the power play led to a necessary penalty causing an unnecessary 5 on 3.